Saudi Aramco is making progress with the main contract tendering process for a project to boost gas compression capacity at the Shedgum and Uthmaniya processing plants in the kingdom’s Eastern Province.

The Shedgum and Uthmaniya plants currently receive approximately 870 million cubic feet a day (cf/d) and 1.2 billion cf/d of Khuff raw gas, respectively.

Through this multibillion-dollar project, Aramco aims to increase the compression and processing capacity of the two plants, as well as to construct new pipelines to enhance gas transport.

Contractors are preparing bids for several engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages of the Shedgum and Uthmaniya gas compression capacity expansion project. Aramco has set a bid submission deadline of 17 November, according to sources.

The Saudi energy giant is understood to have started the solicitation of interest process for the main EPC contract tendering exercise in the fourth quarter of last year.

Aramco then issued the tenders for the EPC packages of the scheme during the second quarter of this year and set an initial bid submission deadline of 17 August, the sources said.

In line with its aim of increasing gas production and processing capacity by 60% by 2030, with 2021 as its baseline, Aramco is investing significant capital in gas projects in the kingdom this year.

Aramco’s capital expenditure (capex) in the third quarter of 2025 stood at $12.55bn, a marginal year-on-year increase of 2%. For the first nine months of the year, the firm registered capex of $37.41bn, an increase of 3.38% compared to the same period last year.

The company previously announced capital investment guidance in the range of $52bn-$58bn for 2025, excluding around $4bn of project financing.